


Drifting

by ncfan



Series: The Suna Project [5]
Category: Naruto
Genre: Angst, Canon-Typical Violence, Canonical Character Death, Character Death, Death, Dysfunctional Family, Family, Gen, Isolation, Sibling Death, Uncle-Nephew Relationship
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-09-11
Updated: 2015-04-02
Packaged: 2017-12-26 07:15:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 4
Words: 8,980
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/963128
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ncfan/pseuds/ncfan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The old poet says 'Fear death by water.' In the parched lands, it is considered more practical to fear death by sand.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Intravenous

**Author's Note:**

> Hello there! In comparison for the last multi-chapter fic I wrote for Naruto, Ruler of the Sands, this probably won't be as long. I've got more chapters in the outline for this one than I did for that, but the chapters are going to be just as long as they need to be, no longer, and will probably vary in length. It could end up being as long as Ruler of the Sands, but I wouldn't hold my breath if I were you. I hope you'll enjoy it, nonetheless.

The old poet, or one of the many old poets, says 'Fear death by water1.' In the parched lands, it is considered more practical to fear death by sand.

In Kaze no Kuni, 'death by sand' is a saying with a dual meaning. There is, of course, the obvious outer meaning of the phrase—a death out in the desert, away from civilization, away from anyone who could help you. That, perhaps, ties in to the deeper meaning of the phrase.

On a deeper level, the phrase 'death by sand' refers to death by anonymity. It is the death resulting by obscurity and invisibility. This is the death before death: you have been swallowed whole, by duty, or by stigma, by madness, by addiction or disease, by whatever reason, you have been swallowed whole, and your skin's gone see-through. You're invisible; no one can see you anymore, can't and won't. When you die no one notices and even fewer people care.

Of course, 'death by water' has a double-meaning too. It is the untimely death, the death no one saw coming. In Kaze, most people will say: "Better death by water than death by sand. At least someone will remember to bury your bones or burn them."

For the Sunagakure ANBU agent, death by sand seems inevitable, and Yashamaru is no one to think otherwise. Any other nineteen-year-old young man ( _even if he doesn't feel young_ ) might hope for death by sun (a glorious death), but he knows now, deep in his bones, that it is the sand for him. Perhaps not today or tomorrow, not this year or decade—perhaps he will live to see retirement and a great old age—but it will happen, eventually. Obscurity is in his veins, his blood. With his training, his cultivated masks and faces, how can it be any other way?

-0-0-0-

"Yaksha?"

Kawa in January is cold and wet. It's too far south for snow, and this has been an unseasonably warm winter anyways—Yashamaru winces to remember the stiff, dry heat of Suna when last he was there, without the normal coolness of winter and without even a coastal breeze to break the doldrums. Near the estuaries on the western coast of the country there rises the omnipresent, faintly putrid odor of commingled brine, fish, brackish water and rotting plants, a smell that Yashamaru doubts he will ever grow accustomed to. The food here is faintly familiar and unfamiliar at the same time, made with different spices, to different tastes, slightly off, an air of wrongness permeating each bite. And the smell of the estuaries…

The smell of the estuaries reminds Yashamaru of the smell of a sickroom in Suna, reminding him why he needs terribly to get home. For all the time he has been here, in Kawa no Kuni on assignment, he's wanted to go home—the captain of his squad has noticed, has commented on his unusually distracted performance—and care for his sister. He wakes up at night and for a long moment thinks that he's back in his house in Sunagakure and that he needs to get up and go to the next room to check on Karura, wasting away in a dark room while a child with a demon bound fast to its fate grows in her womb and saps her strength.

_No, that's not right. She was transferred to the hospital before you left. Kazekage-sama took one look at her and insisted on it. At least the man responsible for her condition has caring enough left in his heart to insist on his wife being in the care of more than just one medic._

_But not enough caring to save her life._

It's strange, so very strange. Since they were little, it's always been Karura who's taken care of Yashamaru, not the other way around. She's five years his senior, and until her health began to decline was more than competent to take care of herself. That's the image of his sister that Yashamaru has in his head: competent, beautiful and brave, inclined to sharpness when angry and willing to let disputes lie with a sufficiently contrite apology. Not the strange, enervated creature given to morbid thoughts and morbid words, lying on a bed in a darkened room with all the shutters closed, drawing in thick, shuddering breaths. She's not due until May, and to look at her you could barely tell that she was pregnant, but she's sickened, she's sickening, dying (no, he doesn't want to admit that, but she's been declining for months and the air of death about her is so palpable that Yashamaru can _smell_ it), and he needs to go home.

"Yaksha!"

Yashamaru jumps slightly to hear his code-name spoken aloud and doesn't quite meet the gaze of his impatiently frowning captain; to do so would be rude. "My apologies, Shiva-taicho. What is it you were saying?"

Shiva's eyes narrow in displeasure. "I'm _saying_ that Fujitsubo needs you to take a look at her before we leave. Possibly Haddu as well."

"He's alright, taicho!" Anat informs him. "He's got a nasty bump on the head, but no concussion, as far as I can tell."

Shiva nods. "Fine. Just Fujitsubo, then. Get on it; we need her well enough to travel."

Their mission, given to them just two days after the Kazekage signed the treaty ending the five-year war with Hi no Kuni, was to track down and eliminate deserters believed to reside in a seaside town of Kawa no Kuni. They could not be allowed to live; who knew what sort of information they could give to the other nations? There were five of them in a group, nearly a match in numbers for the six-man plainclothes ANBU squad, and it took a while and a surprising amount of effort to kill them all. _Either the deserters were more skilled than their profiles suggested, or we have simply grown careless._

Fujitsubo is lying on her back on the wiry sea grass, her head in her younger sister Murasaki's lap—well, Yashamaru _thinks_ they're sisters; they look very much alike and they're often put on missions together. Wisps of Fujitsubo's short black hair fall over her pinched, strained face; her injured leg sticks out as straight as she can manage it, the deep laceration on her calf oozing sluggish blood on to the ground. In the wan pre-dawn light, the blood looks black.

He takes out a bottle of antiseptic (you always need to clean a wound before applying healing chakra) and cleans the wound; Fujitsubo sucks in a deep breath and fiddles with her hand-length tessen in an attempt to distract away from the pain. Yashamaru looks at the fan and feels a sharp pang.

_Draw chakra to your hands._

The process of summoning and plying healing chakra is engrossing enough to distract away from his worries. Emerald green chakra springs to Yashamaru's palms. He and Fujitsubo and Murasaki behind her are bathed in ghostly green light, and he focuses his attention on the task at hand. _Press the chakra to the wound. Concentrate on speeding up cell division. Not too fast, not too much; she'll have worse problems than this gash to contend with if you encourage too much cell division. Watch the wound. Watch the bleeding stop. Watch the flesh knit back together. Watch the scab form, harden, fall off._

_That's it._

Yashamaru ceases the chakra flow and sets his hands down on his knees. "How do you feel now, Fujitsubo-san?" he asks politely, none of the tension he feels bleeding through into his voice.

Fujitsubo whispers thanks to her sister, and stands, testing her formerly-injured leg gingerly. After a moment, she nods and smiles faintly, smoothing her sleek (if rather sweaty) hair back down. "I think I'll be okay. Thank you, Yaksha."

The six of them begin the journey back to Sunagakure, the dawn stretching its limbs at their backs. Yashamaru supposes Shiva is probably gathering all the details for the report he's going to have to write in his head, but Yashamaru is mostly concerned about getting back to his sister, and doing his best to look after her and the child she carries, before what seems like the inevitable happens.

Several miles down the road, Yashamaru remembers that he'd promised Temari and Kankuro that he would find some small souvenirs for them in town. They won't understand, but he'll offer them apologies anyways.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> End Note:
> 
> 1: T.S. Eliot, The Waste Land, 'The Burial of the Dead', line 55.


	2. Attest

Death by storm—death by a great calamity of some sort. It tends to overlap with death by water, can overlap with death by sun, and almost never with death by sand. It is considered one of the more unfortunate deaths, but still preferable to death by sand. Better to die on account of some ill alignment of the stars than to fade away, out of memory and history.

"She named him Gaara, you understand," Chiyo calls from the other side of the room; Yashamaru hears, as though from some great distance, her shutting the door to the room, leaving them entombed in the cloying, all-encompassing heat. Yashamaru's not sure if he'll ever be able to escape it, even if he goes to the far polar wastes of Tsuchi and Kaminari. Even if he went and stood atop the roof of the world, he would still feel the heat pervading the hospital clinging to his bones.

Yashamaru's team arrived back at the gates of Sunagakure some times before dawn; the inky sky was only just beginning to lighten. The team was stopped at the northern gate for inspection, as was procedure and only fitting, but only a few minutes after they arrived, Chiyo came hobbling up to the gate, panting slightly. The elder puppet master of Sunagakure muttered a few words to the guardsman in charge, and to Shiva when he protested, and then she drew Yashamaru away by the arm as she would when she was training him in medical ninjutsu and there was someone in urgent need of care. Like he couldn't get there on his own, or she didn't trust him not to wander off.

Perhaps that is what she fears, that he'll wander off and just vanish into the shadows pulling at the alleys. But even in the old days, Yashamaru wasn't the one who wandered off; that was always Akira's forte, before the war left its mark on him as it left its mark on everyone and turned them into different people, and Akira strayed no more. _And yes, she kept a weathered eye on us all._

Yashamaru's mind rushes to a multitude of mundane things. He wonders who has been taking care of Temari and Kankuro—probably the same succession of off-duty jonin and medics since Karura fell ill; God knows there aren't enough hours in the day for their father to properly care for them. It could well be Kalyani; she usually covers Yashamaru's shifts at the hospital without even having to be asked when he's gone, but took leave just before he left for Kawa. If she's the one who looked after his niece and nephew, he'll have to thank her.

The house will probably be two inches deep in dust and sand. Yashamaru was sharing it with a married couple until about a year ago, when they moved out, and since no one else has moved in the house has been Yashamaru's alone. No matter how tightly he shuts the windows and latches the latticed shutters, sand always seems to find its way in, and dust materializes out of nowhere on the countertops. If he didn't know better, Yashamaru would swear that a ghost was entering the house to play tricks on him.

Was the body washed properly?

Had the funerary rites been properly observed…

" _And you'll be back in two weeks?"_

_This is the most lucid Karura's been in days, her eyes dull but relatively clear; the IV drip's doing its work, keeping her hydrated. She's even sitting up in bed, even if she does have to use the pillows as props. Still, her face is haggard, eyes sunk deep in their sockets, her bones jutting out at the shoulders and the wrists, her veins like roadmaps on her arms. To look at Karura is to see how long it's been since she has been well enough to venture outside for any length of time. Her hair has darkened and hangs lank and dull around her face. By contrast, her skin is several shades lighter than it was before she fell ill, waxen and translucent. Good health seems to have deserted her utterly._

_Yashamaru smiles, and his grip upon his knees tightens when she seems not to notice anything amiss about the pull of his lips. "That's right. We're heading to Kawa later tonight. We've been allotted two weeks, but Taicho says we'll likely complete our mission ahead of schedule, so I hope to be back sooner than that."_

_She nods. "That's good," Karura murmurs. Her eyes glaze over. "That's good." Then, her eyes are on him, and in a moment they have shifted from glazed to feverishly bright. "You'll be back soon?" she asks in an almost totally uncomprehending tone of voice._

Not back soon enough.

Never soon enough.

Almost of their own accord, Yashamaru's fingers wrap around the rails of the bassinet. He feels as though he could snap the wooden rails in his grip. "What…" His blood is roaring in his ears; Yashamaru feels his fingers itching to yank on them until they fall off. "…What was done with my sister's body?"

Out of the corner of his eye, Chiyo shifts her weight from one tired foot to the other. "I'd thought you had outgrown strange questions," she murmurs. She flexes the fingers of her prosthetic hand, a nervous habit she's had ever since it was first fitted for her arm over fifteen years ago.

"I… Please, Chiyo-sama." It's important to me."

"There isn't much to say. I washed the body; no one here was willing to do so, considering…" Chiyo catches herself. Her gaze drifts downwards, lips pursed. "Well, you can imagine."

Yashamaru nods. Yes, he can imagine, all the whispers of ritual uncleanliness, the horror of the dead increased tenfold by the stigma attached to contact with the demon. It should have been a family member, but if her husband wasn't going to do it then it would have fallen to one of Karura's children, and in that case, Yashamaru is glad that they were at least spared that. The corpses of the dead are often prepared for burial by hospital staff these days; Yashamaru himself has performed the rites more than once. So long as it was someone…

"The funeral was the next day." _Which I missed because I took that mission, that I wasn't here for because I was in a different country altogether._ "Your sister was buried with due speed; no need to worry about that."

At that, Yashamaru turns his gaze to Chiyo sharply. "Buried?" His teeth worry at his lip momentarily. "Not cremated?"

If Chiyo is surprised by this turn, no sign of it appears on her face. "No, no cremation. I see no reason as to why the body would have needed to be destroyed."

No, Yashamaru supposes she wouldn't. To the non-Hindu1 residents of Sunagakure, cremation is a method used only on the bodies of executed criminals and those who died of infectious diseases. To cremate the bodies of those who died any other way is to them as disrespectful a way as the body can be treated short of simply leaving it in the open to rot beneath the sky. It's always been a point of contention between the natives of Suna and the peoples from the West. Yashamaru knows that, rationally, for the Kazekage's wife to be cremated after death, even having died the way she did, would have set more than a few mouths to muttering. And yet…

_How long has it been since he last behaved as though he cares what she wants?_

Yashamaru's gaze is inexorably drawn back to the miniscule infant lying in the bassinet. _And now, this child no longer has her to speak for him. Neither do his siblings._ The flash of blood gleaming in sunlight as it flies through the air, the rustle and whisper of browned teff2 as he runs through the field alongside his teammates—Yashamaru is often away; his missions often take him far afield these days. He's not been in his niece and nephew's lives as often as he should be, and though he pushes the ache down outside of Suna so that he can barely feel it anymore, it's not gone. Now, his sister is dead, and her youngest child lies…

She…

She gave birth, and died. No. More accurate to say that she had a miscarriage and died, given how far she was along as of January 19. Yashamaru can imagine it, much as he doesn't want to—he's seen a few women die of miscarriages or disastrous childbirth. He knows how it goes. He wouldn't wish that death on anyone.

Gaara…

The child opens his eyes and stares up at him.

Yashamaru stares back, brows furrowed. Washed-out as the world is, though pale Gaara's eyes are almost shockingly green. They have no pupils that Yashamaru can see, usually a tell-tale sign of cataracts and yet, through some sense of knowing, Yashamaru knows that Gaara has been afflicted with no impairment of eyesight. There are black rings around his shallow-set eyes, as though someone has dabbed kohl on the baby's face to ward off the glare of the sun.

_They say the eyes are the windows to the soul. Your eyes are the windows to your strange soul. Already, you are different from everyone else. From the moment of your birth…_

Yashamaru nearly chokes when Gaara stretches his tiny arms up towards him, pale eyes intently searching his uncle's face. "He's… alert, isn't he, Chiyo-sama?" Yashamaru stammers, taking a step back from the bassinet.

"Yes, he is. He doesn't eat very well, but apart from that Gaara seems to be thriving."

"Ah… Pardon me, Chiyo-sama—I've delivered a few children, but only out in the field; I don't know that much about babies. Is… Is it normal for a baby born so prematurely to be this alert so early on?"

The look Chiyo shoots him is the half-withering, half-condescending stare she reserves for those whom she feels have just asked an exceedingly stupid question. Where it once would have left Yashamaru abashed beyond the ability to string together an apology, today it barely even stings dully. "No, Yashamaru, it is not, and whether or not you are all that familiar with childbirth, I do seem to recall teaching you at what stage of development a fetus becomes _viable_. Gaara should not even be alive, let alone fully-formed or 'alert.'" She snorts indelicately. "Small wonder the nurses all tread on eggshells around this one, even without taking Shukaku into account."

An image of Gaara hooked up to a life support machine with wires and tubes piercing the length and breadth of him flashes through Yashamaru's mind. Beyond that, there is the image that would have been, if Shukaku had never entered into the picture—the baby dead but Karura still alive, or both mother and child still living and Karura happy and healthy, not expecting her child until May, when he should have been born. He licks his dry, cracked lips. "The…" He knows Shukaku only as a malevolent mass of chakra being forced into a seal on his sister's stomach, which then disappeared as it poured into her unborn child. It was dry as the sand and as wickedly hot as any sun that ever beat down upon the Wastelands of Kaze no Kuni. That was enough of an impression to last him a lifetime. "The demon affected his growth? Is that it?"

Chiyo's irritated expression gives way to one of weary pity. It's amazing, the way that such a small shift can add years upon years to an already aged face. "It seems the only credible answer. Huh—" she rolls her eyes exaggeratedly "—There was a pediatrician in here earlier trying to give some hare-brained reason as to why Gaara could look the way he does without the Ichibi being responsible, but it was all prattle and I think even he knew that. There is no natural explanation for _that_." Chiyo waves her hand fitfully in the direction of Gaara's bassinet.

In the next moment, Chiyo closes the distance between herself and the bassinet. She makes a soft, crooning sound in the back of her throat as she lifts Gaara up from the blankets and cushions into her hands—how small he is, to fit so well into her cupped hands—but she sighs heavily when she looks down at the tiny newborn, and rearranges her face into expressionlessness. "I warned the Kazekage and… I warned them that sealing a bijuu into an unborn child could have unforeseen consequences. 'Better to wait until after the child is born,' I said. No one ever listens," she mutters. "The consequences, well, we've seen the consequences."

Yes, they have.

"However," Chiyo murmurs, an odd gleam flashing in her dark eyes as she runs her finger down Gaara's cheek, "I do not think we need to fear that Shukaku has destroyed the child's consciousness. Not unless the child sleeps will we fear of that, and he's shown no sign of the _capacity_ to sleep, let alone the urge."

"He… can't sleep?" For what must be the thousandth time, Yashamaru feels as though he could be bowled over with a breath of wind. He doesn't like being put in such a position of ignorance—knows no one who does—but it seems unavoidable this day, when all the harbors of rational knowledge pull away from him. "What do you mean?"

Chiyo proffers Gaara to him, but when Yashamaru only stands there dumbly, his hands shaking, she sets him back down in the bassinet and glances Yashamaru over with an appraising look. "I suspect you will be deemed one who needs to know these things within the next few days, so I will tell you this. Neither of the past hosts of the Ichibi were able to sleep. If by some chance they were to fall asleep, normally by use of a jutsu to induce sleep, the bijuu would manifest. And that is under controlled circumstances. As for when Shukaku manifested under less controlled circumstances, without the application of false sleep… Each time this occurred, the host was less emotionally stable afterwards than they had been before the bijuu manifested. They were only able to last three or four times before the bijuu had robbed them of too much of their consciousness to remain stable."

"That's…" Yashamaru fingers curl around the wooden rails again, still warm from where he had clenched them before.

_He… can't sleep?_

Once, in the early days of the Third War, just after becoming hospital-licensed, Yashamaru was called upon to fill in for shift after shift at the hospital, as his combat abilities had been deemed 'sub-par' by his superiors but his proficiency with medical ninjutsu was, by contrast, far above average for someone of his age. Suna was short on manpower to start with, not having had nearly enough time to recover from the Second War, and medics were needed out in the field just as badly as they were in the hospitals in Sunagakure.

On one occasion, staff were so thin on the ground that Yashamaru had to stay up for three days straight, only able to doze off for a few minutes every twelve hours on a hallway bench, never reaching REM sleep. By the end of it, he had begun to hallucinate, hearing voices where none existed, including the voice of his late mother. His hands were shaking so badly that he couldn't even pick up a glass of water without spilling it, and he couldn't navigate the hallways of the hospital without getting hopelessly lost.

That was just three days, three days that culminated in Yashamaru being hospitalized for the better part of a week (Though the hospitalization had more to do with the fact that he'd also drank and eaten very little during this time period). Just three days, and that was enough to convince Yashamaru that he never wanted to go so long without sleep again. He can't imagine going an entire lifetime without sleep. He can't imagine fearing sleep as much as Gaara will have to. He can't imagine…

"That's…"

And to look at Gaara, his tiny body stretched out in the bassinet, his delicate little arms reaching upwards, is to know that he has no idea of his fate.

He stands there, rooted to the ground, hands fixed upon the rails, feeling breath and warmth come and leave him in agonizing measures. Yashamaru doesn't hear the footsteps drawing nearer to the door from the hallway. He's not aware of the newcomer until he hears the voice sounding from the doorway.

"Chiyo. I need to speak to Yashamaru alone."

Yashamaru swallows hard, sets his jaw. Of everyone it could be, it would have to be him, wouldn't it?

Addressed in such a way, Chiyo's entire demeanor changes. Her indignation crackles around her as much as killing intent would; even without looking at her, Yashamaru can feel it hovering in the air. "Hmph. I was leaving anyway." Her uneven footsteps echo unnaturally loudly in the room as she starts to leave. "The child's ready to be discharged. Do try to keep him alive longer than a week," she says acidly, and is gone.

Yashamaru says nothing, doesn't dare turn round. He stares intently down at Gaara, refusing to look up from the bassinet. He knows he's not alone, knows it to be deeply disrespectful to ignore the presence of his village's leader as blatantly as he is, let alone when that leader is kin to him, even if only through marriage— _And even if his wife is dead at his hands_. But that knowledge isn't enough to make him look at him.

He can feel the Kazekage's eyes upon him, feel his scrutiny. The man's always had that tendency, glancing over people appraisingly—Yashamaru can still remember how it had felt to have that gaze leveled at him a little over eight years ago, when they first met and Yashamaru was still a raw genin. That he can still look at people like this when Karura is barely cold in her grave ( _Buried? Not cremated?_ )…

It… It isn't as surprising as it should be. But then, Yashamaru _knows_ the Kazekage.

"She wasn't due until May."

This is all unreal. Yashamaru finally comes to that conclusion, long after he should have. This whole situation seems like something so far from reality that it would better belong in myth. He can still imagine his sister standing at his side, pushing his hair out of his face and smiling at him. _'Come on, talk to me. You can't just stand there and stew.'_ But he'll never hear her voice again, even though it feels as though she's standing just out of sight.

"No, she wasn't."

…

"She named him Gaara, in case you're wondering."

And there is his still-awkward attempts to make conversation, unaffected even after all that's happened.

"Ah… yes, I know." His voice barely sounds like his own voice. He sounds like a stranger to his own ear. "Chiyo-sama told me."

"I need you to look after him."

Yashamaru doesn't know what it is that makes him look up, whether it be sheer surprise or the tone the Kazekage takes with him, one so bizarrely close to a request rather than an order that it's as though he's been replaced by a different man. But the moment he looks at him, he can see the changes in the other man.

Of course, if you asked him, Sunagakure's Yondaime Kazekage would likely deny that he is any different a man than he was before his wife died and his youngest child was born. However, even as much as he doesn't want to, Yashamaru can see the changes in his demeanor, in his very face, that the Kazekage himself might not even be aware of. Skin drawn tighter across his face, faint lines at his mouth, weariness shining out of his eyes. Shoulders too stiff, standing too straight.

If this has changed him, then good. It _should_ have changed him, and in Yashamaru's opinion it hasn't changed him nearly enough. He pushes down any pity he might feel; it is only reflex, and if his training in ANBU has taught him anything, it has taught him to restrain emotional reflex when it is inconvenient for him. This is still… This is still the man who all but murdered his sister. This is still the man who turned Yashamaru's nephew, his own son, into a jinchuuriki host for the Ichibi.

But he is also the Kazekage, and Yashamaru, whatever he may feel, is a shinobi. He is a shinobi of Sunagakure, an ANBU agent, and when his leader tells him to do something, there is only one answer he can give.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Notes:
> 
> 1: In 2469 AGB (After the Great Burning), ninety-eight years before Naruto started, a vast country to the west of the shinobi nations, known to the shinobi nations as 'the Empire to the West', drove out everyone who practiced Hinduism, as well as their families, banishing them from the land on pains of death. They scattered and eventually ended up in Kaze no Kuni and, to a lesser extent, in Kawa no Kuni (There were already small populations of Hindus in Kaze no Kuni, concentrated largely in Saumdhaara on the coast, and larger populations in Mizu no Kuni). During the civil war between the shinobi of Kaze no Kuni and the Daimyo's forces, the leaders of the refugee Hindu community allied with the future Shodai Kazekage, who as part of his terms with the Daimyo granted them sanctuary in Kaze no Kuni and full citizenship.
> 
> These days, 'Hindu' as used in Kaze no Kuni does not necessarily refer to someone who practices Hinduism, and can also refer to someone who is a descendant of those refugees from the West. Integration has been limited; the cultural divide between the peoples of the West and the natives of Kaze no Kuni has softened somewhat, but not much. Many shinobi from this group choose not to practice certain tenets of their culture or religion (if they are observant at all) in public. The vast majority of the peoples of the West living in Sunagakure live in the Immigrant Quarter in the southeast of the city. The leadership of the Empire to the West has since become more tolerant, but has not allowed those it drove out to return.
> 
> 2: Teff (Eragrostis tef) is a species of grass grown as a cereal crop in the highlands of northern Kaze no Kuni and on the coast of Kawa no Kuni, as it is adapted to both extremely dry and extremely waterlogged conditions; it is also grown in the south of Kaze no Kuni and south of that country. It is high in dietary fiber and iron, and as it is gluten-free, is often used in the diets of those who cannot tolerate gluten.


	3. Fatherhood of a Different Sort

The need seems great, but Yashamaru does not take Gaara out of the hospital right away. He goes first to the head pediatrician for his recommendations—what food will Gaara need, when will he need to bring the child in for check-ups, what does he think the rate of growth will be for a baby born so prematurely? Yashamaru really doesn't have that much in-depth experience with infants. He's baby-sat Temari and Kankuro on multiple occasions, but he was never their sole caretaker and when they were hurt or ill their parents took them to the nearest hospital, not to him.

Yashamaru looks for Chiyo in the hospital, hoping to ask her a few more questions (and hoping that she'd not meant it when she said she was leaving), but she is nowhere to be found. The receptionist says she didn't say where shew as going. _She's probably returned to her home._ He frowns slightly, feels a pang in his chest and pushes it down. _Like I would like to be._

He will speak to her later. Yashamaru has no desire to chase after Chiyo, no desire to wend his way along the village wall (he has no fear of meeting trouble in the shanty towns; he can handle any trouble that comes to him) to find the house Chiyo shares with her brother. There will be time for that yet.

The pain begins to numb. His harshly-beating heart begins to calm. Yashamaru is a shinobi with a mission, a medic with a patient in need of his care. He is not, in these moments, a young man who has lost his sister, or a teenager suddenly in charge of a child. As long as he is not that, he can be calm. He can compose himself and step forward with a clear goal in mind, as long as he is not that.

Yashamaru leaves the hospital and sets off for a nearby grocery store, buying formula, and then to a department store. Even if Gaara cannot sleep, he will still need something soft to lie on while he's still too young to walk, so Yashamaru buys a few blankets to that effect. A small bolt of cotton cloth will be cut into strips to serve as diapers. Yashamaru has no idea what he'll do for clothes; even the section for prematurely born children doesn't have clothes small enough to fit Gaara. _I'll think of something,_ Yashamaru tells himself, and moves on.

Maybe there's a crack, a small crack, when he takes his purchases home with him and realizes that he forgot to buy a cradle.

In all likelihood, the oversight came about as a result of Gaara's inability to sleep. Who would think of buying a cradle for a baby they know to be incapable of sleep? But it's an oversight, and what medic or ANBU agent would allow themselves such an oversight?

Yashamaru squeezes his eyes shut, and takes a deep breath. He could ask for use of the cradle Temari slept in as a baby; he doubts he would be refused. But… _I don't think I could muster the will to ask him for anything_. Instead, Yashamaru takes the laundry basket Arata and Nafisa left behind when they moved out and sets it on a table in his bedroom, so at least it won't be on the floor, and stuffs the blankets he bought inside. It will do.

Now, to collect Gaara.

-0-0-0-

The sun is climbing high in the sky when Yashamaru steps out of the hospital, his nephew wrapped in a hospital-issue blanket in his arms. Most of the vendors' stalls on Market Street are open, though some are lagging, a symptom of the unseasonably warm winter. The wind kicks up dust in the streets, and Yashamaru winces and blinks against the grit that gathers in his eyes.

Gaara, though, is silent. He cried for a bit in the hospital, thin, piercing wails that seemed more bereft than angry or upset (Though Yashamaru knows it's impossible for Gaara to be cognitive of loss, he wonders if it's possible for a child to be instinctively aware of their loss. Maybe it is possible.). Those wails died down immediately when someone, in this case Yashamaru, picked him up. Now, Gaara is silent. His eyes are half-shut, squinting against the sun. Occasionally he looks up into Yashamaru's face, or out at the source of some noise—a customer haggling with a vendor or shrieks of laughter from children playing in the street or the bleats of goats or sheep being shepherded to the auction square.

Yashamaru looks down at Gaara and tries to discern any hint of Karura's features in his face. With her older children, it's easy. Temari's resemblance to her mother is immediately apparent to anyone who looks at her. It's less obvious with Kankuro, but he looks like his mother around the mouth and jaw. With Gaara… He doesn't know. Yashamaru's brow knits as he stares down at him. Maybe Gaara is too small (he can't remember if he did this when Kankuro or Temari was born), or too alien, a porcelain-skinned child playing host to a demon.

He prays he will see a resemblance as Gaara grows. The treacherous thought comes: _Perhaps you don't see a resemblance because you don't want to. You don't want to see any likeness to_ her _in_ him _when he was born in her blood. You only seek to deny him that much, for the sake of your own wounded heart._ Yashamaru presses his lips together, troubled.

As he enters the Immigrant Quarter, steps off the main road and begins to pick his way through the narrow streets and alleyways towards his home, his mind begins to fill with questions.

_For how long will I take care of Gaara? Until he is grown, or until he is old enough to become the living weapon of Sunagakure? Will Kazekage-sama take him from me when Gaara is in no more need of care, and will need to learn to become a weapon instead? Will he be taught to forget everything about human warmth and love?_

_What will be demanded of me when he gets older? What role shall I play in Gaara's training? Will I be called upon to teach him cruelty?_ Yashamaru looks down at Gaara, who stares back up at him trustingly. He feels his heart clench in his chest. _For the good of the village…_

_Sister…_

The interior of his house looks no different than it did the last time he entered it, but somehow, this house has suddenly become to Yashamaru as the house of a stranger. The furniture, the shutters over the window, the faded rug on the floor, none of it looks familiar. A photograph of Karura sits on a table in the living room; Yashamaru pushes it down as he passes by, unable even to look at it.

Yashamaru sets Gaara down in the laundry basket. All ambient noise drops away, replaced with resounding silence. His heart begins to pound again, blood racing, blood roaring in his ears.

It should not be this way.

Yashamaru has never thought much about the idea of having children of his own. The vast majority of his life has been spent embroiled in war, both the Second War and the Third; he was too consumed by war to consider pursuing a relationship, and never became close enough to anyone he would have wanted to marry. He had always expected to be a large part of his niece and nephew's lives; it would have been remiss of him not to be.

(That will not be, however. It has been tradition in Kaze for centuries that orphans are given to their mother's family to raise, and that the same is to be done with children who have lost their mother if, for any reason, their father is unable to care for them. No one would have blinked if the Kazekage had just given all three of his children to his brother-in-law to raise. Though none of the other kages of this nation had children, it was far from unusual for the past leaders of the country to have their children fostered among kin, rather than brought up in their own household.

The Kazekage does not feel it wise for Gaara to be brought up under the same roof as his siblings, and on this score, Yashamaru agrees with him. As much as it pains him to admit as much, there is no telling how much control Gaara has—or will have—over Shukaku and its sands. Kankuro and Temari are too precious to take such a risk with their lives.)

Yashamaru never expected this, though.

A year ago, if someone had told him that his sister would die and he would be left to raise her youngest child alone, he would never have believed them.

But it was a long, tumultuous year, as they all have been.

The rest of the day passes in a haze. When the baby cries, Yashamaru feeds him or changes his diaper or holds him close to his chest and does what he can to soothe him, whether humming softly or bouncing him up and down or just holding him and counting the moments and praying that Gaara will stop crying. Yashamaru himself eats nothing, says nothing, can barely keep track of his thoughts.

When he lies down that night (there's still light slanting through the closed shutters, so maybe not night after all), sleep does not find him. He lies awake beneath the tangled sheets, staring up at the ceiling, waiting. For what he is waiting, Yashamaru is not sure. Whether it be for Gaara to start crying or for tears to run down his own cheeks, whether it be for his heart to stop beating, whether it be for the demon to begin rampaging, he does not know. He suspects that his heart, paying no heed to his mind, may be waiting to harken to a voice that will never be heard again.


	4. On Balance

"So this is the alleged demon child," Vasanta mutters, staring down into the makeshift crib with a somewhat skeptical expression on his face. "Bit on the small side for that."

"Hmm," Yashamaru says in lieu of an actual response, busying himself with folding the last of his laundry and not meeting his neighbor's eyes.

He could have done without visitors. Yashamaru barely slept last night, tossing and turning in his sheets, and on this day would have preferred privacy. In all honesty, he'd not expected visitors at all, had supposed the demon's stigma to be enough to keep prying eyes away. However, there came in the morning a knocking on his door, and much as Yashamaru might have liked to, he couldn't abandon his ingrained sense of politeness long enough to disrespect a prospective guest in such a way.

(It's probably for the best. Vasanta is a neighbor, someone Yashamaru can easily run into every time he steps outside of his front door, and moreover could easily spread the word if Yashamaru chose to deny him entry into his home. Yashamaru has enough to deal with as it is; he'd rather not have to contend with the disapproval of his neighbors as well.)

"I'm surprised they aren't making you keep him at the hospital," Vasanta goes on, clutching the edge of the laundry basket in which Gaara lies. "Don't babies this small usually need respirators?"

Yashamaru finds, somewhat to his regret, that he has folded the last of his laundered clothing, and can't avoid giving a more verbose reply than 'Hmm.' "It was expected that Gaara would have to stay in an incubator," he murmurs. Yashamaru glances over at Gaara. He's lying still in the laundry basket, eyes shut, though Yashamaru knows quite well that Gaara is not asleep—there'd be signs impossible to miss if he was. "However, the medics examining him found him to be in perfect health, so really, there was no point."

"Why does _that_ not surprise me?" Vasanta runs a hand through his stiff black hair, blinking down at the baby with a slightly averse expression crawling across his face. "By all accounts—" Suddenly, he turns his gaze to Yashamaru, and licks his lips. "Well," Vasanta mutters. "Well."

Yashamaru very nearly recites the old tale that tells of what a man gets for mincing words—you get servants unwilling to tell you you're out of food or that your wife's dead—but he bites his lip and restrains himself, choosing instead to stare blandly at his neighbor. It feels hotter than usual in the room, though the ceiling fan is going at full tilt and it's cooler today than it has been in months.

After several long, uncomfortable moments pass like this, Vasanta shifts his weight from one leg to the other. "Well, if there's nothing else, I suppose I'll just give you this." He reaches into his shirt and pulls out a small package wrapped in brown paper and bound with string. "It's a nazar battu; my mother wanted you to have it, for the baby."

Frowning bemusedly, Yashamaru starts to undo the string, but pauses. A nazar battu is a common enough sight in a new parent's home in this part of Sunagakure, usually handing over a crib or at the doorway or window in order to the ward off the Eye. There was one that hung over the doorway to Yashamaru's room when he was a child, though he has no idea what happened to it. Some of them… Some of them are made in the shape of a demon's head. If it is…

Yashamaru goes back to gnawing on his lip and opens the package.

It's not shaped like a demon's head. The nazar battu he has been given for Gaara is not in a shape commonly used by his people, not the demon's head or a shoe or a leopard's claw or anything like that. Instead, the nazar battu is fashioned in the shape of a hand made of blue glass, with the Eye painted on the palm, a design popular among the hamsas of Suna's native, both the Sage's people and others.

A gift to ward off misfortune…

"Thank you," Yashamaru hears himself say.

Vasanta nods. "Sure. Your nephew's circumstances are so unusual that…" He trails off, his gaze going back to the laundry basket.

Gaara has opened his eyes, is staring up at the new face before him curiously. When Vasanta's eyes meet those pale, blank green eyes of Gaara's, his face grows pallid. He mutters some hurried farewell and quickly leaves Yashamaru's house. He doesn't come back.

-0-0-0-

Night has fallen and Gaara is crying. Yashamaru doesn't know what to do for him. He's tried to give Gaara formula, only for the infant to turn his head sharply away from the bottle. His diaper doesn't need to be changed. Being held does nothing to console him.

Yashamaru paces the floor in the dark, rubbing his forehead and trying vainly to control his breathing. Gaara's piercing wails fill up his ears, ringing in his skull. His head feels like it's about to split open, his blood pounding; he can barely breathe.

Yashamaru abruptly turns on his heel and once again draws Gaara into his arms. But the warmth of human touch won't stop his cries, and he feels cold and heavier than he should in Yashamaru's arms.

-0-0-0-

The next morning sees Yashamaru, wan and tired as he is, putting Gaara in a sling across his chest and making the walk northeast towards the wall, and the house where Chiyo and her brother live.

One of the wall shanty towns lies just south of Chiyo and Ebizo's house. It looks much the same as it ever has—a collection of tents and ramshackle buildings made of broken sheets of drywall with canvas roofs. Yashamaru walks by men sitting outside of their homes, smoking pipes or playing games of backgammon, women huddled by their dark doorways, children playing hide-and-seek amongst the multitude of clotheslines laden with brightly colored shirts and trousers. Yashamaru's been here before, checking up on patients or searching for criminals attempting to evade the ANBU's detection. He knows the makeshift streets, and knows too that there is nothing here to fear.

"Ah," Ebizo greets him, when Yashamaru reaches his home, his dark eyes twinkling beneath heavy brows. "I've been expecting you."

"Good morning, Ebizo-sama," Yashamaru murmurs, dipping only in a shallow bow so as not to tip Gaara out of the sling. Chiyo doesn't really stand on ceremony, not enough to expect bowing, but Yashamaru doesn't really know Ebizo well enough to say with him. He tries to smile, but what comes up on his mouth is merely a half-hearted twitch of the lips. "Is Chiyo-sama here? I was hoping to speak with her."

Yashamaru feels his heart sink when Ebizo shakes his head. "I'm afraid not; my sister is out visiting with an old acquaintance of hers today. She did leave some papers for you, though." Ebizo eyes him piercingly. "Why don't you come inside? It's not often that we have callers."

Seeing nothing else to do, Yashamaru nods and follows him inside. The interior of Chiyo and Ebizo's home, hidden behind those massive doors as it is, is rather unusual. It appears less as a normal house and more as a massive hollow cut into the wall, and a few rooms sitting atop the stone, whether at the level where Yashamaru and Ebizo have entered, or up the staircase and onto the upper level. The stone has been white-washed, gleaming under some source of light Yashamaru can't identify, and shows few signs of occupation—no scuff or score marks here.

"I… hear birds," Yashamaru remarks, curious in spite of himself. He can hear the soft cooing of birds from somewhere in the house; Yashamaru casts his gaze around, but can't find the source of the noise.

"They're carrier pigeons," Ebizo tells him. "This place was the city's aviary, once long ago. When I came to live here, I began to use it as an aviary again, though obviously my dovecote can't house as many as Suna's mews can now."

"I see."

Yashamaru follows Ebizo into a small room cut off from the larger house by a star-patterned wooden lattice screen rather than solid walls like the other rooms seem to be. Inside there is a small, circular table made of a pale golden stone, and three chairs set around it. "Wait here," Ebizo says. "I'll be back in a few minutes."

Sad to say, but Yashamaru finds himself breathing a small sigh of relief when his host leaves him and Gaara alone in the room. _I wonder how long it's been since this place last received a guest_. Yashamaru fidgets in his chair, suddenly feeling very young and small. He doesn't really want to be here at all, wants to go home where he won't have to think about anything more complicated than taking care of—

His mind drifts to what most dominates it when it's not focused on Gaara or some task of the moment, and Yashamaru swallows hard, appalled at himself to find his eyes stinging. Maybe, he supposes, he should be happy for distractions after all. _Sister would have liked this place. She always liked open, airy spaces like this. She…_

Yashamaru puts his hand under Gaara's small body in the sling across his chest, and stares down at him, brow furrowed, heart troubled.

-0-0-0-

The baby won't stop crying.

This time, Yashamaru doesn't bother trying to pick Gaara up in his arms, doesn't bother trying to soothe him. He sits on the edge of his bed, cradling his head in his hands, sobbing practically in time with the child.

-0-0-0-

Yashamaru doesn't think his brother-in-law has been in his house since he moved here. Karura had volunteered to help him move his things into his new home, and, rather to Yashamaru's surprise, her husband showed up with her to help. To this day, Yashamaru still isn't sure why, not exactly.

The Kazekage's presence in his house is not what anyone would call welcome. Yashamaru knew this visit was coming, knows that there will be many more like it in the future, but still, as Yashamaru lets him into his house, he feels as though the air has grown tense and sour. _At least let this visit be a quick one._

"You're keeping him in a laundry basket?" the Kazekage asks incredulously, when he sees where Yashamaru has been keeping Gaara. His gaze flicks from Yashamaru, to the baby, and back to Yashamaru again, the look in his brown eyes almost indignant.

"It's what I had on hand," Yashamaru replies defensively, barely able to keep from bristling. He clenches his hands on the edge of the laundry basket.

"I'll send Temari's old crib over," the Kazekage mutters, with such an abstracted look on his face that Yashamaru suspects that he's more speaking to himself than he is to the other adult in the room. It's not really like him, talking to himself in such a way, but nothing about this situation is normal or characteristic for either of their lives.

The Kazekage looks down at his tiny son and sighs heavily. _Do you regret it? I should hope you do, though it's far too late for regrets—the damage is done and the seal is set; your regret comes to nothing now._ Yashamaru finds his anger running to irritation. The Kazekage shouldn't be able to look at his son with such a frankly melancholic expression. Not when he was the one who made him.

(Yashamaru feels a stab of pity in spite of himself. He quashes it, angry at himself—pity for _him_ , when Karura is dead?—but the echo of it will haunt him, he fears.)

"How is—" The Kazekage stops himself, frowns, and asks in a more even voice, "What have you found, these past few days?"

The baby cries often, but more often at night, and Yashamaru can barely sleep for fear of being awoken by those cries. Yashamaru has _found_ that when he does sleep, the dreams that he has (loss and fear on a backdrop of blood) are just as likely to awaken him in a cold sweat and lack of breath as Gaara's cries. He has _found_ that sometimes when the sun hits Gaara and casts a shadow on him, he expects the shadow to quiver and show golden eyes full of malice.

"Apart from the fact that he doesn't sleep, Gaara is a normal baby," Yashamaru says quietly. "What else did you expect, at this date?"

"Nothing," comes a reply so immediate that Yashamaru is surprised. For all the way he talked, Yashamaru expected the Kazekage to think of Gaara as a living weapon right away. "That comes later."

"It does indeed."

Yashamaru looks at the Kazekage out of the corner of his eyes, feeling his shoulders stiffen all the while. "So… You had her buried, but not cremated?" he inquires tightly.

That the Kazekage's answering expression is one of puzzlement is both galling and, honestly, not entirely unexpected. "Yes." His face darkens. "Some might think that association with the Ichibi taints the body, but I saw no reason to conduct Karura's funeral any differently for that."

Yashamaru winces at the sound of her name spoken aloud. "It is not the way of our people," he retorts. "The soul cannot pass on properly without cremation." He remembers, however faintly, the stories his mother told him about ghosts, stories he only half-believes (and rarely during the day), but the idea still makes his skin crawl. _How can he not understand this?_

"The spirit is gone at the moment of death," the Kazekage insists, face hardening. "I don't see how the way you dispose of the body makes any difference."

Yashamaru can find nothing in him willing to answer. He nods shortly and looks away.

Later, Yashamaru will breathe a sigh of relief when the Kazekage leaves, and will turn his pensive gaze to Gaara.

"You… You are just as much a victim as anyone, aren't you?" he murmurs.

That night, when Gaara starts to cry again, Yashamaru clambers out of bed to try to quiet him once again. He's tired, his bones aching with weariness, but finds within himself none of the panic he had felt before.

_He's only a child, after all._


End file.
